Even with an impressive number of billion-dollar blockbusters, the 2019 summer box office won’t be one for the record books.

Popcorn season, the four-month stretch between May and August, generated $4.324 billion in ticket sales in North America, marking a 2% decline from last year’s $4.413 billion, according to Comscore. The summer box office has certainly seen worse (in 2017, ticket sales hit a 10-year low with $3.843 billion). However, those uninspired returns pushed year-to-date revenues down over 6%, meaning the movie business will need to rely on huge hits in fall and winter to offset that deficit.

Disney walked away the big winner this summer as three movies — “The Lion King,” “Aladdin” and “Toy Story 4” — grossed more than $1 billion worldwide over the summer. “The Lion King” was the highest-grossing film this summer with domestic ticket sales at $523.5 million to date. Through the first weekend in September, the company commands 40% of the domestic box office.

But even the biggest Hollywood studio didn’t emerge unscathed. Disney was saddled with a handful of duds after merging with Fox, and “Dark Phoenix,” “Stuber” and “The Art of Racing in the Rain” resulted in costly write-downs.

Related Stories

Thanks to hits like “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” Sony also had a promising summer. The studio secured second place in terms of marketshare for the first time since 2010. It closed out the summer with $700 million at the domestic box office, Sony’s biggest haul since 2006.

However, a number of underperforming franchises are mostly to blame for the overall decline in ticket sales. While not all sequels struggled — Lionsgate’s “John Wick 3” is now the highest-grossing entry, and “Angel Has Fallen” scored a series-best debut — new installments from properties including “Godzilla,” “Men in Black” and “The Secret Life of Pets” failed to live up to the box office heights of their predecessors.

After a mixed summer season, studios and exhibitors are hoping tentpoles including “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” another “Jumanji” sequel, “It: Chapter Two” and “Frozen 2” can lift ticket sales through the end of the year.